If someone sits around and apparently does nothing, then they’re lazy, right? This book for four-to-seven year olds charmingly sets about dispelling that notion.
All the desert creatures — from cougars to badgers to prairie dogs — are puzzled or downright disdainful about why Leo the Lizard doesn’t play, dig, climb, howl, or prowl. Instead, they see Leo smiling, eyes open wide, as he reclines on warm sands:
“And yet Leo simply goes on in his way.
He lies where he lay and he stays there all day.
If others don’t like it, they’ll think what they may.
They’ll do what they’ll do, and they’ll say what they say.”
It isn’t until a roadrunner starts wondering what makes Leo tick and starts imitating his behavior that we get to the heart of the matter: Leo is paying attention. Our favorite illustration in the book shows the roadrunner flat on his back, feet and beak in the air, gazing at the sky, “staying perfectly still as the world passes by.” Soon others try this approach, too, discovering the magic of taking in nature with all our senses.
For more than ten years, author Ed Shankman and illustrator Dave O’Neill have collaborated to create rhyming picture books that have found a special place in the hearts of children and families. In this latest collaboration of theirs, we appreciate not only their emphasis on taking time to simply be but also the reminder that those who are different from us can open us up to new perspectives.